Melania Trump has turned her attention from her “Be Best” anti-bullying campaign to the nation’s best bots for tots.
The first lady welcomed some of the US’s foremost tech leaders – and a few bit players – to the East Wing of the White House on Thursday to inaugurate a taskforce on artificial intelligence and schools as part of an initiative dubbed the “Presidential AI Challenge”. The event concerned how to integrate AI into childhood education.
Joining Trump at a horseshoe-shaped table set in front of gold candelabras and American flags were various department heads, including education secretary Linda McMahon; Michael Kratsios, director of the office of science and technology policy; and David Sacks, the venture capitalist now serving as the White House’s cryptocurrency and AI czar. Tech CEOs seated with her included Google’s Sundar Pichai and IBM’s Arvind Krishna. OpenAI’s Sam Altman was spotted in the crowd but gave no remarks.
“It’s a beautiful event today,” Trump said as she kicked off the meeting. “We are living in a world of wonder.”
Trump took a moment to marvel at the advances of modern technology. She eschewed any dystopian visions of the future – or the present moment, when AI companies have been accused of fomenting teen mental illness and taking recent grads’ jobs.
“Cars now steer themselves through our cities, robots hold steady hands in the operating room and drones are defining the future of war,” she said. “The robots are here. Our future is no longer science fiction.”
The meeting was part of an all-day slate of events to promote Donald Trump’s AI initiative. Striking a far more bellicose tone compared with the first lady’s breathless wonder, the president’s initiative text states that the US is in a “race to achieve global dominance in artificial intelligence” and “under President Trump, our nation will win”. Along with the first lady’s AI challenge, which invites all students and K-12 educators to use and promote AI, the government’s initiative includes a series of executive orders aimed at fostering the technology.
McMahon said one of the Department of Education’s goals was to integrate AI into school curriculums across the country.
“It’s not one of those things to be afraid of,” McMahon said. “Let’s embrace it.”
Several tech-industry watchdogs criticized Melania Trump’s White House event, saying it was dangerous to promote a technology that had pushed youth to kill themselves and engage in disordered eating and other forms of risky behavior and self-harm. This comes as the Federal Trade Commission said Thursday that it was investigating OpenAI and other AI companies for the impact their chatbots have on children’s mental health.
“As public outrage against their lethal products continues to grow, big tech CEOs are seeking shelter behind President Trump, hoping to buy their way out of the many lawsuits and legislation coming to hold them accountable,” said Sacha Haworth, executive director of the Tech Oversight Project.
Tech companies pledge to bring AI to students nationwide
During the first lady’s afternoon meeting, she did not mention any of the harms AI has caused, but rather touted the technology, saying it would be the “greatest engine of progress in the history of the United States of America”.
The tech CEOs seated at the table also spoke, thanking the first lady for her work to bring artificial intelligence to children nationwide.
“It’s a real honor for me to be here,” said Google’s Pichai. “You’re really inspiring young people to use technology in extraordinary ways.”
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Pichai said Google was imagining a future where every student “can learn anything in the world”. He said the company was actively working to set up systems to make AI more accessible in schools around the country. IBM’s Krishna said IBM was pledging to teach AI skills to 2 million workers in the US.
Cameron Wilson, the president of Code.org, who was also at the table, said his company would “engage 25 million learners” with artificial intelligence and that the company’s goal was to “transform our education system so students can thrive in AI”.
The White House said it had received more than 135 pledges from companies to support AI education in the US. Those include Microsoft, Amazon and other tech companies. Microsoft announced on Thursday that it was hosting free AI trainings and offering expanded access to its AI tools in schools. Amazon announced it was helping educators use AI.
‘This is corruption in the Rose Garden’
The day was scheduled to culminate with a dinner in the White House’s revamped Rose Garden, where Silicon Valley’s top luminaries were expected to be in attendance. Those included Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and OpenAI CEO Altman, according to an invite list seen by the Hill.
Glaringly absent from the list was Elon Musk, who posted on X that he had been invited but “unfortunately could not attend”.
Haworth, from the Tech Oversight Project, contended: “This is corruption in the Rose Garden.”
The watchdog group Demand Progress said the day’s events showed how much power the tech industry now has in Washington DC.
“Honoring these self-serving, predatory executives in the first-ever event at the newly renovated Rose Garden is an obscene metaphor for who really runs this country,” said Emily Peterson-Cassin, policy director for Demand Progress. “If the administration’s top officials really cared about the people, they would stop these big tech execs from unleashing dangerously underdeveloped AI on us.”
